Box camera

A classic box camera.

The box camera is, with the exception of the pin hole camera, a camera in its simplest form. The form of the classic box camera is no more than a cardboard or plastic box with a lens in one end and film at the other. A simple box camera has only a single element meniscus fixed focus lens and usually lacks control of aperture and shutter speeds. This makes them suitable for daylight photography of medium distance, static subjects only -- snapshots, essentially. During the type's commercial life span, box cameras with photographic flash, shutter and aperture adjustment were introduced, allowing indoor photos.

Creators/Inventor

The idea of the box camera was created by the French inventor Nicéphore Niépce. He was known for his photographic experiments. With the help of Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre they were able to create the camera to expand the popularity of photography. Soon After Niépce's and Daguerre's new advancements to the box camera many more photographers decided to do their own "photographic experiments" and created their own cameras based on the original box camera. Niépce's created one of the first box cameras during the 1820s.

Beginnings

Box cameras are among the original photographic instruments. Over the decades between the 1720s and 1820s many experiments had been made with the light sensitivity of silver halide crystals, and being able to fix the image without it fading away instantly upon exposure to sunlight. Nicéphore Niépce took the first permanent photograph using a box camera in 1826 and the exposure lasted all day. Henry Fox Talbot was another pioneer who used box cameras. His early experiments with "mousetrap" cameras are credited with the first photographs on paper.

Purpose

The box camera was commercially produced to expand the popularity of photography. Photography was still a very new idea in the mid-19th century and a product needed to be created to enable the public to participate in this new art. The box camera became the first consumer camera at the end of the 19th century. In 1900, when a Yale plate box camera cost $2 (52.70 in 2009 dollars [3]) and a Kodak rollfilm box only $1 ($26.40 in 2009 dollars [4]) the industry sought new customers for its huge production of these simpler cameras.

Typical box cameras

• The Kodak introduced in 1888, the first commercially successful box camera for roll film -- the advertising slogan being You press the button – we do the rest.
• The Kodak Brownie, a long lasting series of classical box cameras using roll film.
• The Ansco panda was designed to compete directly with the Brownies. It used 620 film.
• The Kodak Instamatic using 126 film, later 110 film.
• The modern disposable camera using 135 film.

In the UK:

• Ensign cameras, by Houghton Butcher (examples)

Other box cameras

'Le Phoebus 1870

Etienne Carjat (1828–1906) another French photographer created "le Phobus'" around the late 1870s. It was a simple mahogany box camera. It needed no formal shutter. The leather lenscap was removed and replaced for the exposure of light.

Pocket Kodak 1895–1896

Pocket Kodaks were small (2 and 3/16 x 3 x 4 inches) and lightweight (6 ounces), and took roughly 2 inch exposures on 102 size rollfilm. This camera had a new feature, a small view box that told how many exposures of film were left. They were first available in 1895 with either black or red leather covering.

le Papillon 1905–1908

Meaning "the butterfly," le Papillon was a small French stereo camera which made 45mm x 107mm stereoscopic images on glass plates in single plateholders.

No. 00 Cartridge Premo Camera, 1916–1922

The No. 00 Cartridge Premo was Kodak's smallest box camera ever. It was only 2½ inches tall. It uses a simple rotary shutter with meniscus lens, and does not have a viewfinder. The photographer must use the leatherette covering to attempt to see the subject of the photograph.

See also

• A toy camera is a simple, inexpensive box camera that uses film. The body, and sometimes the lens, is made of plastic

External links

• A photo essay made with an Ansco box camera